John for Everyone, Part 1 (The New Testament for Everyone)

NT Wright does a great job with historical context and insight as you read through the book of John. I highly recommend.

The author should really be listed as N.T. Wright, not Tom Wright. N.T. Wright is a well known scholar, Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of St. Andrews. In this series he makes the Bible readable, approachable, and understandable to all of us.The format is unique. Each paperback volume tackles a book of the Bible, in this case a two-volume set for the book of John. Each chapter begins with Wright's own translation of a section of a chapter, followed by a few pages of explanation, illustration, and commentary. In the back of the book is a glossary of terms, explaining some of the words or phrases that might be puzzling to an average reader.The sections are good for Bible study, but they are also wonderful for personal devotional reading. N.T. Wright obviously not only loves the Book he is explaining, he also loves the Lord and carefully draws the reader to really see and understand Jesus the Savior and Messiah through the eyes of John.The overall themes and structure of the book of John are also woven throughout the commentary, making it worth going back for a second and third reading.

I am reading this as part of a women’s Bible study. Every one of us agrees it’s one of the best studies we have done and we have learned many new things despite having read John several times before. The book gives you very small segments of a chapter and verse and then in NT Wright comments on it. He introduces each concept with an analogy from real life and then ties it into Jesus‘s time, which I find fascinating. It is giving me new respect for the gospel of John and - for that matter - for NT Wright!

I like the book. Sometimes the connecting stories are missing something. The bridge that is built to connect the chapter sections is unclear and sometimes non existent. Besides this point I like the book. The way the gospel of john is splitted and the conclusion for each chapter are quite fascinating.Thanks for writing this sir.

Here is not of a reading of the gospels that skips over the surface of the life of Jesus. Rather the depths of His life are really plunged. Not just a reading of the where and when of His life, but also the history altering work that was (and continues!) to take place.Through John's gospel, Wright shows us a weaving together of the retelling of Jesus' life and ministry that John uniquely, as chosen by God, gives us. Not just a who, when, and where telling, but also the how and why. This is my 2nd gospel to go thru with with Wright, and, through this reading, it is as if Jesus is stepping off the pages into our own time & place in history.

John for Everyone has the witty turn of phrase, the illustrative personal stores, and the avoidance of theological jargon that N. T. Wright is known for. It also is informed by his theology which departs from what evangelical Protestants have believed since the 1500's. (See, among his many works, What Saint Paul Really Said, and Justification.) Wright approaches Scripture through the lens of his historical scholarship and emphasizes what the Jews of Jesus's day would have understood. This can be interesting and helpful, but becomes a problem when it is esteemed as a guide for understanding what the authors of the New Testament meant as they wrote. Such an approach overlooks the fact that Jesus's harshest words were to the Jewish leaders of his time! He told them they were blind. They did not understand either who Jesus the Christ was, or their necessity of believing in the Son of Man. The apostles, also Jewish, were subsequently led into all truth by the Holy Spirit, just as Jesus promised them. The Gospels and Epistles they wrote are a revelation of this new, God-inspired Truth.There are many disparities between Wright's theology and the Biblical canon, and this review is not the place to delineate them. Perhaps the most dominant is Wright's minimizing the sinfulness of sin and the certainty of judgment by a holy, righteous God.Wright's treatment of two key passages in John for Everyone demonstrates his approach to the text.First, here is Wright, commenting on John 1: 11-13:But when God sends the Word into the world, the world pretends it doesn't recognize him. Indeed, when he sends the Word specifically to Israel, the chosen people don't recognize him. This is the central problem which dominates the whole gospel story. Jesus comes to God's people, and God's people do what the rest of the world do: they prefer darkness to light. (5)First, what does Wright mean by the word, "pretends"? Why does he insert this word? He does not explain, and it is unwarranted from the text. Secondly, Wright claims that the central problem "which dominates the whole Gospel story" is that men prefer darkness to light. Yes, in a sense, but why? This is the surface. We look to a commentary to further help us understand. Tellingly, he does not address the why; he fails to state that preferring darkness is the symptom of the disease, not the disease itself. John says we prefer darkness to light because we are sinners; we are the people who love the darkness rather than the light, because our deeds are evil. (3:19) We shun the light because we don't want our sins exposed.Is the omission significant, or a small matter? It matters because it is a half-truth that changes the Gospel into therapy for the problems of daily living, instead of the Good News of peace with God and eternal life. It focuses on this world, rather than the one to come. The Biblical Gospel is that God has given His Son to take our judgment and as we look to Him, we are reconciled to God, eternally. For the Biblical writers, Old and New Testaments, the central problem which the Gospel addresses is that men are rebels, the objects of God's wrath: "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth." Rom 1:18. Wright's half-truth, presented as the whole truth, is not the Gospel.Wright continues:"Perhaps the most exciting thing about this opening passage is that we're in it too. `To anyone who did accept him (verse 12)--that means anyone at all, then and now. You don't have to be born into a particular family or part of the world. God wants people from everywhere to be born in a new way, born into the family which he began through Jesus and which has spread through the world." (5)Here, the Gospel is all about Gentiles being included in the Jewish covenant--another typical Wright emphasis. Again, in terms of the Gospel, this has the effect of a half-truth. It is true, blessedly true, that the offer of sonship extends to all who receive Christ Jesus. But if it is exciting news, why do men reject it, preferring darkness to light? Because to receive Jesus as Savior is to know that you need saving and cannot save yourself. It is joyful news only to those willing to repent and surrender their lives to God.For a second example, we turn to Jesus's conversation with the Pharisee, Nicodemus, in John 3. Jesus tells Nicodemus that unless he is "born again," he will not see the Kingdom of Heaven. Wright begins his commentary on this passage by telling the story or his lost birth certificate to make the point that the moment of birth is insignificant compared to the reality of being alive. There is certainly truth in this--segments of Christendom can place too much emphasis on the moment of salvation to the neglect of necessary, ongoing transformation. But here its effect is to downplay the necessity of the new birth. How is this an accurate reading of the text? Wright goes on to say that for Nicodemus, as a first century Jew, what matters is being born into the right family, and now Jesus is saying that that doesn't matter, that he is starting a new family, of which everyone may be a part. This reading of the text ignores the context--Nicodemus's words show that he comes to Jesus as a teacher who has proven his authority by miraculous works. He waits for some new teaching from a teacher who has been shown to be from God. What new teaching does this teacher give him? That it is not what you know, or what you do, but whether you are alive because you have been born for a second time! Wright says nothing about Nicodemus's puzzled question as to how a second birth is physically possible. When Jesus tells Nicodemus that a person must be born of "water and the spirit", the phrase echoes the prophecy of Ezekiel which would certainly be familiar to Nicodemus, the "teacher of Israel":Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean : from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. 26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them. (36:25-27)Wright's take is that the "new birth" means a double baptism, a water baptism that brings people "into the kingdom movement" and "baptism in the spirit. the new life, bubbling up from within". (Note it is never the "Holy" Spirit; the word is never even capitalized.) This is like getting Christmas spirit. It is emotional. In contrast, the Biblical writers are clear that God's gift of His Spirit does not "bubble up from within". It is imparted from above; it is a supernatural reality. As Ezekiel makes plain, it is a matter of the heart. It is God's Spirit that is imparted to us.One last consideration--Wright, on the cross of Jesus Christ. Christ's death for us and His resurrection are the central facts of the Gospel. Here is Wright on what happened to Jesus Christ on the cross: "the evil which was and is in the world, deep-rotted within us all, was allowed to take out its full force upon Jesus." (33) Wright talks of evil, not sin. Evil can be against men; sin is against God. (Rom 3 23) Jesus, here, "dies under the weight of the world's evil." What is missing? The doctrine of the atonement! "For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." (II Cor. 5:21) Wright omits this crucial truth. He leaves out the heart of the Gospel, the sine qua non of the Good News. In Wright's explanation of the cross, there is no sinless sacrifice dying in our place, that we might be justified by faith. Wright has gutted the cross of its meaning. Jesus is simply a victim of the evil in the world.Wright reads the Gospel of John according to his own theology, a theology which minimizes or denies the Biblical truths of sin, judgment, redemption through Christ, and required repentance and a new birth.

The book helps to understand sequence of John passages that are built to each other and make the picture and the Gospel clearer. I have discovered hidden gems that I never thought of. I strongly recommend.

I really enjoyed this commentary which helped me more fully appreciate the Gospel of John. The author not only gave good historical perspectives, but also very useful devotional perspectives as well about how John can relate to me personally.

This book & others by this author make Bible study easier & more fruitful, it is easy to read & his explanations make the understanding of John's Gospel more complete, it may be the first that I have bought but it most certainly won't be the last.

I have used all Wrights "for everyone "books to study the Bible. They make easy and accessible learning.

Great book [commentary] by a great writer. I'm a huge Tom Wright fan

It gave me a more understanding of the Bible

Excellent book and delivery